Pakistan’s President Pledges Aid to Arab Cause; Hussein Vows War of Liberation

President Yahya Khan of Pakistan has pledged his country’s support to the Arab cause and warned there can be no “durable peace in the region in the region in the absence of a just settlement of the Palestine question,” according to a statement released by the Pakistan Mission to the United Nations distributed today to the news media. The remarks by Pres. Khan were made yesterday in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, at a dinner in honor of King Hussein. Pres. Khan was quoted as saying that “continued occupation of the Holy City of Jerusalem is a matter of deepest anguish to the entire Muslim world.” He accused Israel of being responsible for the fire that broke out last August at the Al-Aqsa Mosque. (Several days after the fire, Israeli officials apprehended Michael Rohan, a citizen of Australia, and charged him with setting the fire. At the trial, Mr. Rohan admitted that he set the fire because God had told him to do so. He was found guilty by the Israeli court).

Pres. Khan also stated that the “path of peace does not lie along the route of territorial changes brought about by force and suppression of the right of self-determination of the people of these territories.” King Hussein was reported as saying that Jordan was gratified with the military aid Pakistan provided last month. King Hussein told Pres. Khan and the assembled dignitaries that Pakistan’s response was not merely an act of one “brother” helping another to “liberate his homeland” but also an act “in defense of Islam against the sacrilege committed against our faith.” King Hussein charged Israel with displaying an “arrogance that has not been equaled since Hitler’s day” and vowed that in the face of Israel’s violations of “order and decency” the people of Jordan “are determined to liberate their homeland and holy places and to free their captured brothers.”